I know it's been done to death but I don't think people realise how hard it is to work in a school!

[user4692821]

I work in a small village primary school in the north. I'm so used to hearing people saying "oh I'd love to work in a school so I could have the holidays off" or something along the lines of "well you can't complain as you get so much holidays with the kids" etc.

My week normally consists of:

Being called a bch 3/4 times a day
Told to shut the fk up at least once a day
Being punched
Spat at

And that's just some of the 'bad' incidents. It's not mentioning the other more 'minor' incidents that happen constantly through the day.

I work with 6/7 year olds. In a mainstream school. It's not uncommon, most TA's have similar in their classes. When we meet people from other schools they say the same.

Yet we are constantly told to be grateful we have a job that gives us time off for our kids. I 100% get that it's lucky we can have the holidays off so we don't have to pay for childcare. However what I ask myself everyday is: is this worth my mental health? Because honestly (apart from NHS jobs or similar) where would you go in to work and expected to be treated like this and paid minimum wage?

It is because of the entitled public, who can be really quite vile. I’m in the NHS and the change in how people treat our staff in the last 30 years is abysmal.

You would always get the odd person who would swear at Reception but now it is multiple times a day. Every member of our team has cried at some point in their career because of how the public treat them.

OP is a TA on minimum wage. I imagine it’s a job to work around her children and therefore being taken advantage of because shes stuck in that position.

I've got quite a few friends that are teachers. 4 of them have moved to teach abroad (Dubai and Thailand) and 1 of the others is retraining to be a nurse. The way they are treated by the children has changed so much. Not to mention the parents seem to do very little to prevent/change this behaviour.

I remember going to school where in every class there was probably one or two kids that would answer back or be disruptive but now it's close to half the class. If teachers tell them off, then their parents complain.

Gosh! This is awful and had no idea this happens (doesn't at my son's school).
What is the consequence for this behavior? Do they not get expelled?

Gosh! This is awful and had no idea this happens (doesn't at my son's school)
Perhaps it doesn't but you wouldn't know if it did. The staff aren't going to tell other parents. You are only told things that concern your own child And your child isn't across every class every day.

Do you ever listen to the news? Lots of teachers have done this, that's why there's a recruitment and retention crisis. I'm very relieved that my DD only has two more years in school. Do you have young children? If so you might want to ask who is going to teach them.

You are punched and spat at, told to fuck off on a regular basis by 6 year olds???

I work in a generally tough school. Visitors always comment on how well behaved and polite the children are. And it's true, they are lovely. But there are certainly one or two in each class who are a " challenge" And no, it's not usually the ones with SEN, they can be the politest, sweetest children ( with the odd table-throwing exception). It's the ones generally with " benign neglectful" parents, who are left to pretty much do as and what they like, don't have rules and boundaries and are treated like little " friends" rather than children. We have a FOUR year old who regularly calls the staff and other children cunts, fucking bitches and sluts! Mum's response was " Well, he likes watching YouTube so he must have got it from there" But she won't block it as that would " upset him!"
I now have to explain to other parents why their lovely little child is coming home repeating such language!

But when you’re making ‘easy adjustments’ for 10 children it’s suddenly neither easy nor basic is it? Which other ‘professional environment’ are you punched, kicked and spat at? You sound like one of the melt parents being discussed on this thread to be honest.

Who cares. All that matters is the kids who want to learn, can.

There’s a recruitment and retention crisis now. Imagine how much worse that crisis will become in the coming years?

You should care. What happens to sweary little 7 year old Johny? Does he disappear off the face of the earth? Or does he grow up with no chance of ever working outside of society? Would want to bump into adult him?

That sounds awful.

I agree that parenting is often part of the problem BUT I also blame the government/local authority.

What should happen, in my opinion, is there should be consequences for both the children and the parents for this behaviour. There is no support for schools to suspend/ expel pupils - it's all about that not being in their best interests, never mind the best interests of staff and other pupils!

There's an increased assumption that schools should teach everything too - including potty training, eating with a knife and fork, manners, getting dressed - these are things that should have been taught at home before the child started school. How can we be expected to teach actual lessons to 30 kids if we also have 30 nappies to change!

Sweary Johnny will stay Sweary Johnny no matter what we do, frankly

I work in a high school, with the more challenging contingent. I don't get abuse but honestly, these teens will argue that they haven't done something until they're blue in the face. Even when they're banged to rights! Their refusal to take any kind of responsibility is one of the most frustrating elements of my job.
And it stems from their daftie parents.

This kind of comment is so short sighted.

What is it that you don’t understand? There is a retention and recruitment crisis. Schools can’t recruit staff. Children being taught by untrained staff - this is their education and arguably one of the most important periods of their lives, being decimated unless you can afford private and that’s not much better in some cases. Shouting ‘just leave then’ to staff telling you that schools are in crisis only worsens an already dire situation.

There needs to be an absolute shift in parental responsibility for their children’s behaviour in school and PROPER funding and support for children with challenges.

@user4692821 I absolutely agree. It is a nightmare. I think many parents would be absolutely mortified and frankly sickened to actually see what classrooms are like nowadays. And I quite agree just wait till these kids hit the workforce.

From what I've heard private school is worse!

This is out-of-touch nonsense.

I don't think that working in a school is any harder than many other demanding professional roles.

When TAs who are being paid minimum wage for being sworn at/kicked and punched don’t want to do it any more, we have a problem.

I wonder which other ‘demanding professional’ roles you are comparing it to?

There should be CCTV and body cameras for teachers.

It's not acceptable behaviour from children or parents. We need a low tolerances to abuse

So so difficult to deal with. There needs to be a societal shift back to some discipline.

Friends Dd exhibiting some challenging behaviour has a diagnosis - her private school kicked her out so fast her feet didn’t touch the floor. No way could she have been excluded like that from a state school. Awful for her she’s nowhere to go now.

Long time TA - and I’m done for all the reasons discussed here. I just can’t do it anymore so will be leaving in July. Education is a binfire and no one is listening.

Where I live there are hardly any supply TAs. I've been on supply (I'm a supply teacher) for two months in a school nursery where they can't recruit a teacher.

There was a TA but she is off with stress now and I have to say I can't blame her as she's been doing everything. All the first aid, all the safeguarding all the liaising with parents.

So for the last three weeks I've had a stream of supply TAs. Some better than others but mostly absolutely dreadful at their job. Over half can't speak any English at all so,it's very difficult to communicate with them.

Of the 26 children, 8-10 are in nappies so that's one of us changing nappies pretty much all of the time. So it's either me or the TA with 25 three and four year olds.

I haven't RTFT, but to give a slightly different perspective:

I work in a large, rural, truly comprehensive secondary. We have all types of children, all different backgrounds, more diversity than you'd imagine for the location.

We're part of what is described on Twitter as a "Borg MAT".

But it's brilliant. The expectation is that all children are allowed to learn without disruption. So there is a strong and reasonable system to minimise disruption. We teach the children how to take personal responsibility.

And parents hate it. Parents want their children to be able to swear and be violent and disrupt lessons. The social media in the area is always outraged.

Working in the school is the best I've ever experienced. I moved my child there and he loves it, loves that there is very little disruption, no bullying.

So yes, we need to teach manners and responsibility but that will mean that children, who are learning, will have consequences to help them learn. And parents don't want that either.

So far the school/MAT leaders are holding their nerve. Long may it continue, I want my children to come out of this as robust, self-disciplined humans.

I suppose as a continuation of my post: if you work in an unbearable school, try one like ours before you leave the field completely.

It'll be trashed online as being "too strict", but visit and you'll likely find the children thriving, and the staff coping much better (or at least with different things to complain about!)

Nobody is forcing you to write comments like this.
Scroll on if you don't have anything constructive to say.

@user4692821knows that nobody is forcing her to do her job, but that is missing the whole point.